Jereme Richmond was a guy on the bubble of being drafted by an NBA team last June. The Illinois product is a raw but athletic 6’7” swingman, the kind of guy a team might give a camp invite to so they can get a better look.

What’s more, Richmond was jailed Friday for allegedly failing a drug test imposed as a condition of his bond (to be let out of jail after the alleged first incident)….

“When you’re looking at a guy like Jereme, at best an off-the-bench player, (legal trouble) really hurts,” said Draft Express Givony said. “They need to be the best guys off the court. They need to work hard. Distractions can’t come from those guys.”

All that comes on the heels of Richmond being suspended for Illinois NCAA Tournament game for a “team rules violations.”

Talent trumps all in the NBA — if you’re good enough you can get away with a lot. Role players, not so much. Richmond has some real strides to get a team to give him a chance.

You may not know who Jereme Richmond is, but now you will for the wrong reasons.

He is one of those guys who just missed having his named called in the NBA Draft. The 6’7” swingman out of Illinois tried to go pro after his freshman year, but that season was inconsistent and scouts were worried about his fundamentals. Basically, he’s athletic but a real project. The kind of guy who would have gotten put on a summer league team and been given another look, maybe even earned a training camp invite somewhere.

Now, he’s got much bigger problems — he has been arrested on charges of beating a woman and threatening her with a gun. From The Daily Herald.

Richmond, 19, and Matthew Riley, 22, of North Chicago, were arrested Monday afternoon outside the victim’s house after police found a loaded .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol in the car the men had driven….

On Sunday, (Lake County Assistant State’s Attorney Stephen) Scheller said, the woman drove to Richmond’s residence in the 2000 block of Arthur Drive in Waukegan to retrieve her cellphone. The two began to argue outside Richmond’s house, Scheller said, and Richmond shoved the woman back into her car during the ruckus. Monday afternoon, Scheller said, Richmond and Meyer drove to the woman’s house and Richmond began to argue with her again as her mother looked on. At one point, Scheller said, Richmond spit on the woman and said he was going to shoot her.

If he did this, he should be punished. If he does avoid jail time, NBA teams are still going to question his maturity and decision making skills (things they already questioned). Teams are not going to put the effort into developing a guy if they don’t think he can keep his head about him.